


Anywhere You Go

by KChan88



Series: She Was Bound to Love You [6]
Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Bisexual!Christine, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, Genderbending, Lesbian!Raoul, Period-Typical Homophobia, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:55:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23046631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KChan88/pseuds/KChan88
Summary: What if Raoul de Chagny was a woman?A series featuring the major events (and a few things in-between) from the Phantom of the Opera, with a gender-bent, lesbian Raoul (and a bisexual Christine). ALW based, with Leroux elements.Interlude II: A follow-up to All I Ask of You. Raoul and Christine discuss their relationship in the aftermath of the rooftop and the chandelier. Raoul's siblings worry over the goings on at the opera house. Despite her fear, Christine falls deeply, irreversibly in love.
Relationships: Raoul de Chagny/Christine Daaé
Series: She Was Bound to Love You [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1627735
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	Anywhere You Go

Away from the rooftop and safe in Raoul’s grand sitting room with a roaring fire, Christine asks the same question she asked at least five times over dinner.

“Raoul, are you all right?”

Raoul smiles from her place by the fire, and Christine doesn’t know _why_ she’s smiling, though both of them tried to forget the chandelier and the laughter and the note while they ate in a gilded, sparkling restaurant, their horror a mile down the road.

“I’m all right, Christine.” Raoul touches the little cut on her cheek, patched up by her ladies’ maid Marie, who tutted over her for at least twenty while muttering _wait until your brother gets home_. “It’s just a little cut.”

That may be true, but that note was more than a small thing, all bloody dripping ink and threats and proof that Erik without a doubt saw them on the roof. Christine doesn’t want to think about that, an intrusion upon her most private moment, but then her teacher’s been doing that for a long time, hasn’t he? She wants to think about kissing Raoul in the snow and how right it felt, like she wasn’t only discovering how in love she is with Raoul, but discovering a part of herself, too. She doesn’t know if this can last—not because she doesn’t love Raoul, and not even because the world would say no to them, but because she feels nearly certain that her Angel, the phantom, the opera ghost, will take her back. She wants to try to believe the opposite, she wants to believe that she can be safe, but even if she can’t, even if this is only a snatch of joy, she’s determined to have it, to have Raoul, while she can.

She’s only afraid of hurting Raoul in the process.

Maybe, day by day, she’ll be able to believe that the world, the universe, God himself will let her keep such a light in her life. Raoul loves her, Raoul wants her and _she_ wants to make Raoul happy. She hopes she can.

Raoul takes a swig of her red wine and puts the crystal glass down on the table before sitting next to Christine on the settee and taking her hand, their fingers laced together. Christine asks a question. She couldn't ask while they ate dinner, even if the wine and the candlelight did make it brim to the surface. 

"Raoul?"

"Hmm?" Raoul only half answers, more interested in studying their intertwined fingers than anything else. 

"Have you...courted other women? Before?" 

Raoul jolts to attention at this. "Oh. I suppose we haven't talked about that, have we?" She blushes, deeply. "You heard people talking around the opera house, I imagine?"

Christine waves her hand, not wanting to get into the details of Madame Giry’s warning, not now. "A little, but I don't care about that. I just...was curious." 

"I've stolen a few kisses," Raoul says, still keeping hold of Christine’s hand. "But I've only had one relationship of any consequence. It lasted about nine months, but she married about four months ago, on my twenty-first birthday. She was a friend of Juliette’s.” She pauses, apparently understanding the next question Christine wants to ask. “My siblings all know, and Philippe and Juliette are supportive of me, my sister Eloise is…a bit less so. It’s complicated, obviously, but they hope I might find someone and don’t pressure me to marry.”

"Oh." Christine stops, not wanting to pry but then, this is Raoul, and she's never felt anything but comfortable around her. "Did you...were you in love? With the woman you mentioned?”

"Hmm," Raoul says again. "I'm not sure, exactly. I felt very sad when it was over but I didn't feel as though I might cry forever, or couldn't move on." She looks at Christine with something like confidence and terrible insecurity all at once. "We learned about what a relationship of this sort might look like together, found out what our priorities were, and in the end she felt she had to marry. I know I have privileges that many women do not, in that I don’t have to, even if it’s expected of me. I’m afraid I was never quite able to give Celine my entire heart.”

Christine tilts her head. “Can I ask why?”

“I...” Raoul sputters a little. “Well I was…I was rather lovesick over you, I’m afraid. You must think me silly, we were fifteen when we last met.”

Christine pulls their intertwined hands toward her. "Not silly at all. I didn’t…know exactly, that I felt this way about other women, I had a wisp of it in my hands when we were young, but I didn’t pay it as much mind as I ought to have. Then I had a small infatuation with a chorus boy who fancied me about two years ago—it wasn’t more than a few kisses and one or two evenings drinking wine—so I told myself well, I like young men, so that must have been nothing. Then you walked into my dressing room, all grown up.”

Raoul smiles again, a little shy. “I think I fell right back in love with you the moment I saw you on that stage. But I didn’t want to push you. And if you decide that this isn’t what you want, I’ll always be your friend. I promise you.”

“I know,” Christine whispers. “But it is what I want. I…” her face warms. “I don’t have much…experience.” She lands on the word, hoping it’s the right one. “Nothing beyond those kisses I mentioned and I hope…that’s all right.”

Raoul takes Christine’s chin in her hand, so gently that it makes Christine want to cry.

“We will go at whatever pace you so choose, my darling,” Raoul says, and Christine melts at the endearment. “Please, never worry about that.”

Christine thinks of that night in Erik’s lair. She thinks of that sad, beautiful voice that made her want to cry. Before that night, she never really thought that her teacher might have amorous intentions toward her, and even then it was hard to entirely understand, half-hypnotized as she was and lost in the music. His voice. The dream of it all. When he sang, she could forget his anger in the dressing room. The way he demanded things. The ways in which he frightened her among the fascination.

Then she saw that doll. That life size doll that looked like her in a wedding dress.

She hasn’t told Raoul that, yet. She’s not sure if she ought to or Raoul might storm over to the opera right now and commit murder.

In the clear light of day, it’s easier to see that while she cares for her teacher—and still does, even if she’s terrified—he has a type of feeling for her that she doesn’t return. How could she, really, when she thought of him like a father? Perhaps she led him on. Now she isn’t sure. But whatever feelings she has toward him, even when he’s gentle—and he is, sometimes—he never really asks. He just tells.

Raoul is the opposite of that.

She does know how she feels about Raoul. New as this possibility might seem, it also feels like an old friend. Right. Wonderful. She’s not ready for more, tonight, but as she studies Raoul in the firelight, those blue eyes loving her, _just_ her, she can’t stop thinking about how beautiful Raoul is.

Raoul was leading the way on the rooftop, but this time, Christine initiates the kiss. Raoul jumps a little in endearing surprise before leaning into it. Raoul pulls back for just a short moment, their eyes locking together. Christine nods, and Raoul’s hands are on either side of her face soon after, the kiss growing deeper and more amorous. It’s delightful, and Christine thinks she could sit here and kiss Raoul forever. 

Except then the door opens, and they jump apart.

“Raoul!”

A deep male voice shouts the name with concern.

“Raoul!” The man shouts again. “Raoul dammit, are you here?”

A tall, fair-haired man with a mustache rounds the corner into the sitting room, breathing a deep sigh of relief before his eyes widen in surprise at the sight of Christine.

“Thank God you’re all right,” he says, stepping further inside. “There was talk all around the restaurant that the chandelier had fallen at the opera house.” He gives a slight bow to Christine. “Mademoiselle Daae. You gave quite the performance a few weeks ago. I think you astonished half of Paris.”

“Thank you, Monsieur le Comte,” she says. “I hope I’m not a bother, being here.”

“No, no, this is Raoul’s home as much as mine.” Philippe smiles, but there’s some hesitance in his voice, as if does like her, but has some reservations, she just doesn’t know what they are. “And please, call me Philippe.” He turns toward Raoul, frowning. “What happened? You promised me you wouldn’t get into trouble.”

“As it turns out,” Raoul says when Philippe sits down on the other side of her, inspecting the cut on her cheek. “Sitting in a ghost’s box will cause rather a lot of upset. I’m all right, Philippe, you don’t need to mother me,” she continues, when her brother touches the cut with the tip of his finger.

“You almost got crushed by a light fixture, Raoul de Chagny,” Philippe chides. “And apparently someone was hung from the rafters, you will _allow_ me my concern.”

Raoul huffs, but she does smile a little sheepishly. That is, until her brother pulls something out of his pocket.

“I saw this on the table by the door,” Philippe says, and Raoul’s eyes go wide.

Erik’s note.

“Philippe, there’s no need...”

Philippe doesn’t listen, and Christine can’t blame him, not with all this going on, but she feels embarrassed, ashamed, her secrets spilling out into the open.

“Hmm,” Philippe says, his eyebrows furrowed as he looks up, but he does grow a little gentler. “I am not going to pry into private business between the two of you. However, this is a threat, plain and simple, and I hope you’ll take it seriously and let me help you. Please, tell me what happened this evening.”

They do. Raoul lets Christine tell what she can, and she leaves out some of the finer details—like the fact that she believed Erik was sent by her father, because that’s too raw to share with anyone other than Raoul or Meg.

“You tell quite a tale, Christine,” Philippe says when they come to an end.

Christine wants to snap at him, wants to say _why would I make this up_ , but he’s just a man worried about his younger sister, and she can’t blame him for that.

She sits up a little straighter, surprised when Raoul’s hand goes to her back plain as day in front of Philippe. “I swear to you Monsieur le...Philippe, that I am telling the truth. And I bear nothing but the greatest affection toward your sister. Part of the reason I didn’t tell Raoul the entire truth before was because I didn’t want her hurt.”

Philippe smiles a little then, just as the door comes open again.

“Well,” he says. “Raoul, I do suppose we’ll be needing to pay for a new chandelier.”

A woman steps inside the sitting room, pulling gloves off and looking frantic.

“Oh, thank God,” she says. “I heard wild stories about the opera house, I’m so relieved.” She nods at Christine, her expression warm. “Hello, Christine. I'm Juliette de Chagny, if you remember me.”

Christine nods. “I do. It’s good to see you again.”

“Oh, Raoul,” Juliette chides, ushering Philippe off the settee and taking his place on Raoul’s other side. “Your face.”

“It’s a tiny cut,” Raoul protests, but she's deeply fond, Christine can tell.

Juliette winks at Christine. “Philippe and I are terribly protective of our baby sister, Christine. You’ll have to forgive us.”

“ _Juliette_.”

“Shh,” Juliette replies, running a hand across Raoul’s cheek. “I practically raised you, I don’t want to hear it.” She looks around the room, searching for something. “Where’s your swordcane?”

“Her _what_?” Philippe exclaims.

“Oh, my dear brother...” Juliette leans over, pinching Philippe’s cheek, which makes Christine laugh. “It obviously was one, Raoul is terrible at subterfuge.”

“I’m afraid I left it in the opera house,” Raoul mumbles, admitting her crime. “I’ll have to see if it’s there later.”

It’s agreed that Christine will stay the night in one of the guest rooms, and she’s grateful, because she's terrified to go back to the opera house, right now. She supposes she’ll have to, at some point, because it is her home. As she prepares for bed, donning one of Raoul’s spare nightdresses, she considers what it might be like to live here, to be...well she doesn’t know, entirely. She can’t marry Raoul, not in a legal sense. But maybe...

She’s getting ahead of herself. They’ve only just begun.

She goes down the hall, knocking on Raoul’s door and receiving an enthusiastic _come in!_

_“_ Hello,” Raoul says, finishing with undoing her hair from its braid. She’s wearing a nightdress like Christine’s, a blue dressing gown over the top. It’s a deeply informal way to begin a courtship, but then, theirs is surely not a typical one, is it? They’re both women—though Christine suspects that is more common that people like to admit—and Raoul is rich, a _noble_ , and Christine an opera singer. Whatever the changes in France the past century, that second one would matter to society even if Raoul were a man.

That first one will surely matter to them, too. It might matter a bit less to people in the opera house, where Christine’s certainly seen people of the same gender fall in love, sometimes discreetly and sometimes not, but it will still matter to them, and even more to Raoul’s sort of people.

People will talk, regardless, if they aren’t careful. She should worry, she knows she should, about things beyond Erik’s threats, but she can’t bring herself to. It feels right. Natural. Like she’s just been waiting to be with Raoul like this her whole life.

“Everything all right?” Raoul asks.

She asks the question like they didn’t almost have a chandelier fall on their heads earlier, and Christine’s grateful for that.

“Perfectly,” Christine answers. “This is a lovely house. Truly.”

She steps closer to Raoul and pulls her into an embrace, both of them holding tight to each other for a long moment. Some of the tension slides out of Christine’s shoulders, and she thinks she could stay like this forever, safe in Raoul’s arms. When they come apart, she spots something familiar.

“Is that…” Christine almost chokes on her words, her hands going to her mouth. “Is that violin my father gave you?”

“Oh,” Raoul says softly. “Yes, it is. I’ve had it repaired a few times, but it’s held up very well.”

Christine stares at the instrument, given to Raoul by her father when a wealthy patron gave him a new one.

If she wasn’t deeply, irreversibly in love before, she is now. Maybe she always has been.

“Play a little for me?” Christine asks.

Raoul’s fingers run across the violin’s case. “Are you sure? I don’t want to upset you.”

“I would desperately love to hear violin music, tonight,” Christine whispers. “It would make it feel like the old days and I think…I think my father would be happy for us, now. He always said that musicians should be open to love of all sorts, you know.”

If she hears violin music, it might drown Erik’s voice from her head. Maybe it can make her believe it’s just her and Raoul and the memory of her father.

“All right.” Raoul smiles, opening the case and pulling the near perfect condition violin out, and Christine spots a faded _D_ in the corner, for _Daae_. She remembers Raoul running a finger over it when Christine’s father gave her this, so long ago. Given the slight chaos of the rest of Raoul’s room—the piled books, the coats over the chair that Marie hasn’t been able to pick up yet—Christine can tell how much she values it.

And her.

Christine follows Raoul to the corner of the room, sitting in one of the arm chairs and Raoul in the other. Raoul tucks the violin under her chin, draws the bow across and....

Plays a wrong, dissonant note.

“I’m sorry, I'm sorry,” Raoul mutters, her face going pink. “Let me start again.”

“Raoul de Chagny...” Christine feels a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. “Are you _nervous_?”

“No!” Raoul exclaims, out of instinct, before taking back her words almost immediately. “Well, perhaps. Maybe. I...I don’t usually have a terribly pretty girl watching me play, let alone the daughter of a famous violinist.”

Christine laughs. She laughs until her chest hurts. Raoul does a little too, and it feels wonderful.

“My father taught you,” Christine protests, her face aching from a smile, and she can’t recall the last time that happened. “If you’re bold enough to kiss me in your brother’s sitting room, I know you can do this.”

“It’s my sitting room as well,” Raoul, mutters, but there’s a glimmer in her eyes. “But very fair point, all right. Let me try again.”

She does, and it’s beautiful. The notes swirl up into the air and make a miracle, and it hurts Christine a little, to hear this particular music, but it does her good, too. The vision of Raoul with a violin tucked under her chin, her loose dark gold hair spilling over her shoulder with her entire being focused on playing, is likely the most magnificent thing Christine has ever seen.

Raoul smiles wide when the piece finishes, looking up at Christine for approval. “I hope you liked it?”

“Yes,” Christine whispers, grasping Raoul’s hand a moment. “It was lovely.”

Raoul puts the violin away, and Christine yawns, realizing it must be very late. Past 1 in the morning.

“We should get you to sleep,” Raoul says, with such care in her voice that it makes Christine want to cry.

Raoul walks her to the guest room down the hall, and they stop in front of the door.

“May I kiss you goodnight, mademoiselle?” Raoul asks cheekily.

“It’s only right, after you played me that lovely song,” Christine says, touching the edge of Raoul’s nose.

Raoul kisses her softly, sweetly, like their very first one on the rooftop this evening, then steps back with that brightness in her eyes. That light.

“Goodnight, Christine Daae.”

Christine blows a kiss, giddiness rising up in her chest and chasing away the note and the chandelier and the blood red ink.

“Goodnight, Raoul de Chagny.”


End file.
